Lovely to look at Delightful to eat. Beautiful Cookies

I love magazines. I call them eye candy because they're so often sold at the check-out counter where the candy bars are stocked. They're pretty, colorful, full of the promise of something new and delicious. I know up front that they may not be very nutrient dense, either for my body or my brain - but I enjoy the promise. And at least the magazines often inspire me. Mind now, I seldom actually buy the products they're touting.  I believe I can count on one hand the times I've seen something in a magazine, tracked it down and purchased it. A pair of the most magnificent suede boots once ...  well. I am sure there must be Something else I've bought since then - but last December I did so again. In Victoria Magazine I saw a  display of the most gorgeous cookies I've ever seen and I had to track them down.

The cookies were just rectangles with beautiful Christmas scenes on them - Not sure, now if they were old fashioned Santas or these Christmas Angels. They are printed on a cornstarch wafer base with edible food coloring for the ink. And even though I was pretty much done with Christmas baking, I ordered some from a company called Fancyflours (dot com) that promises same day shipping. Which they delivered on - for I got my wafer sheets on the Monday after Christmas.

Of course, I already had a house full of cookies / cake / candy / cheese goodies / eggnog / rumballs - you name it. So with only a little reluctance I set them aside for some Other Baking Opportunity. An invitation to a girlfriend's birthday party was the opportunity I needed and yesterday I baked some - plain sugar cookies, cut into rectangles and then decorated with these beautiful angels.

You use a thinned frosting to glue the wafers down and then decorate the edges with thicker frosting. Any frosting will do - here I used a white butter cream for the glue, then thickened it with chocolate to make the ruffled edges.






Since it was a 50th birthday I made only 10 cookies - one for each decade for her and her husband - unless of course, she doesn't want to share. Perfectly legit for a birthday gift. But the dough produced 11 of them so I used the white wafer scraps and a little of the chocolate frosting on that last one just to get a taste - I have been known to bake very beautiful inedible disgusting things. But these turned out just right.

Today, alas, those germs that have been flirting with my body have ramped things up a bit. I'm juicy and drippy. crumbs. I sure would like to get to the movies - especially after two people I know have been praising it on Facebook. Sigh. Well. I will just see how being upright makes me feel today .. and maybe we'll slip on over for a show - and maybe not. It's cold as blue blazes here in the sunny south. Might just be a good day to sit by the fire and knit.